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Estrada gets earful on cop job

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MUNCIE, Ind. -- Former "CHiPs" star Erik Estrada got into an expletive-laced shouting match with a man who called him Emilio Estevez amid the filming of a reality television series.

Estrada, who was sworn in as a reserve officer last month for CBS Corp.'s "Armed & Famous" show, was in an ambulance with Randall R. Sims, 53, when the exchange unfolded Wednesday night.

The 57-year-old actor entered the ambulance after being asked to remove handcuffs from Sims, who had been stabbed in the leg during a domestic dispute. After addressing Estrada as Estevez, another Hollywood actor, Sims said he didn't want to appear on the show, which also stars La Toya Jackson, Jack Osbourne, Jason "Wee Man" Acuna and Trish Stratus.

The confrontation erupted after Sims, who led a successful push in 2004 to rename a Muncie street in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., told Estrada he knew nothing about King and had only been in Muncie "for two days," The Star Press reported Friday.

Estrada told Sims he'd been in town for six weeks and said he grew up in Spanish Harlem -- a rough Manhattan neighborhood King mentioned in his landmark 1967 speech calling for an end to the Vietnam War.

An exchange of obscenities followed before Estrada left the ambulance.

Muncie Police Chief Joe Winkle said Friday that he hadn't seen footage of the confrontation, but had spoken with Estrada.

"We talked about it last night with him, the fact that that's something we encounter all the time, that you have to get a little thicker skin," Winkle said. "With any new officer we would tell them, 'Hey, that's not how we conduct ourselves, don't get caught up in the moment, we're the ones who are professionals.' That's what we did with Erik and I think he truly understood that."